


Preoccupation of Souls

by sergeant_angel



Series: The Red String of Fate [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Fantastic Four, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Young Avengers
Genre: Billy No, Crack, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Reed Richards is a dick, Someone stop me, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swearing, army boy steve is a potty mouth, odd soulmates, rating may change later, so much crack it got worse, someone tell kate to stop swearing because it's not going to be me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A magical mishap (of sorts) leads to the Avengers and associated acts waking up one morning with the next thing their soulmate(s) are going to say to them on their skin.<br/>The requisite chaos and bonding ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oddities

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ring Them Bells](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029883) by [sergeant_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel). 



> One day on tumblr I was kind of like, hey, I bet Billy gets really frustrated with his friends and their collective inability to find quality significant others and accidentally does magic that makes soulmarks a thing.  
> And lo, crack was born.
> 
> Inspired by every soulmate AU to exist, ever.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's waking up a little different today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddy might have someone to beta his fic, but I do not.  
> Enjoy!

 

> “Soulmates aren't the ones who make you happiest, no. They're instead the ones who make you feel the most. Burning edges and scars and stars. Old pangs, captivation and beauty. Strain and shadows and worry and yearning. Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender. They hurl you into the abyss. They taste like hope.”   Victoria Erickson
> 
> “Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.” ― Robert Brault

* * *

 

Kate feels like she’s gotten run over by a semi.

It takes a few moments for the events of yesterday to filter through her brain, for her to remember Iron Man getting thrown on her. Tony Stark, what is the use of having repulsors or whatever if you’re not going to use them to not crush other people?

Someone bangs on her door, and then Tasha barges in, Banner in tow.

“What the hell, Tasha? Privacy, bro!”

“Did you just wake up?” Tasha snaps. “Well, we need you to wake up and see if you notice anything different.”

“Yeah, I noticed that I feel like an idiot in armor got thrown on top of me.”

“Sorry about that,” Banner rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I did warn them.”

“And yet, I am the one injured,” Kate reminds him, throwing out her arms. “What? Did someone come in and write on my arms last night?”

There is writing down the insides of both of her arms, elegant if sharp script on the left, ending at the tip of her middle finger; neat, bold print on the right from her wrist past her elbow. It’s familiar but she can’t quite place it. “Is this a joke? Or some sort of Avengers hazing? I don’t get it.”

“We all woke up with these—words,” Natasha starts.

“The marks seem to have appeared around two in the morning local time,” Banner explains. “I was awake at that time and felt an odd—shock, I guess. Every Avenger has a mark—or several,” he takes off his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. “The X-Men are reporting markings as well, and some of our international friends.”

“Every Avenger in the city is meeting here in an hour to debrief with Hill,” Natasha adds. “So up and at ‘em, and make sure your team is there.”

“Do we have any idea what they are?” Kate asks, something nagging at her, something familiar about the way _Breathe, Hawkeye, we’ll figure it out_ is written down her right arm.

“The first things certain individuals are saying to us,” Banner pulls his collar down and she can see _Doc, you've got poptart guts in your hair_ in what might be Darcy's handwriting. “This was the first thing Miss Lewis said to me this morning. And the first thing I said to her was—on her hip,” he blushes a little. “We’re not sure what this means.”

“Did you say you felt a shock?” Kate’s brain is finally attempting to fire on all cylinders. “What kind of shock? Like a bad kind? Or like a pop-rocks kind?”

“Wait, the first thing she said to you?” Natasha cuts in. “You didn’t say it like that when you talked to me—"

“It didn’t feel bad, or painful, exactly,” Banner frowns. “Do you have an idea about what caused this?”

“I might, yeah,” Kate is reluctant to admit. “I don’t know what it is—"

“I might,” Tasha says. “Look, do you read fanfiction?”

“Oh my God,” Kate drops her head into her hands.

“What?” Banner looks confused.

“Oh. My _God_ ,” Kate repeats.

Banner still looks confused. “Fanfiction? What does that have to do with—"

Kate somehow manages to shove both of them out of her quarters before she scrambles for her phone.

“Hello?” He picks it up after it rings for almost a minute. “Kate? Everything okay?”

“Billy, get yourself down to the Tower right the fuck now. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

..

“So,” Billy looks sheepish when he and Teddy get to the Tower ten minutes later. “I may have, um. Done some inadvertent magic?”

“You don’t say?” Kate feels like an angry crocodile, ten seconds away from snapping someone’s head off.

“You, too?” Billy turns a little green.

“Oh, me, and you, and the Black Widow, and the Hulk, and about a metric fuckton of Avengers and X-Men, and who the hell else knows.”

“Oh, crap. I thought it was just me and Teddy.”

“Billy,” Kate is very proud of how calm she is. “Did you—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—did you cast a spell that leaves us with marks that are the first words our soulmates are going to say to us?”

“Maybe?”

“As far as we can tell, yes,” Teddy crosses his arms. “It wasn’t on purpose.”

“It wasn’t!” Billy has a panicked look in his eyes. “I swear, Kate. The only thing I can come up with is that Teddy and I were talking about how hard it’s been for you guys—the team—to meet people who are right for you. And right before I nodded off, I sort of thought, _hey, I wish there was some way we could know who we were supposed to be with_ and then…” he gestures. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Can you reverse it?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Ok, but what are the rules?”

“For us, it’s seems like it’s going to be the next thing your soulmate says to you,” he looks a little terrified, which, well, good. “The first thing Teddy said to me this morning was what was on my chest. What do—what do you have?”

Kate pulls off her shooting glove, pushing her sleeves past her elbow, both glad that it is easily accessible and mad that it’s going to be very obvious to others.

“Was wondering what was with the glove,” Teddy comments.

“Tommy!” Billy snags his brother. “Say something to Kate.”

“Um, what the hell’s going on here?”

Kate shakes her head. “Don’t force it, Billy.”

“That wasn’t-?”

“Nope.”

Tasha choses this moment to stick her head into the room and say, “Meeting’s starting. _Now_ , Hawkeye,” Tasha snags her wrist and drags her bodily from the room, apparently counting on the fact that her team will follow her like baby ducklings.

Tasha deposits her at the middle of the table, next to Steve, which is actually nice? Like saying ‘you have the same weight as Captain America and we will respect what you say’.

“Breathe, Hawkeye,” Rogers squeezes her elbow, smiling down at her. “We’ll figure it out. All of us. Just breathe.”

Kate’s brain is screaming at her to _say something!_ But the only thing she can come up with is _oh fuck oh fuck shit shit shit_ and that’s not exactly the first thing she wants to say to Captain fucking America, the man Billy’s fucking spell thinks is her fucking soulmate, Jesus fucking Christ—

But she does take a deep breath.

“We can do this, we can totally do this, between us we’ve got like, three magicians we can call,” she says, half to herself and maybe half to Steve. “Our teams have some of the most powerful individuals in the universe, we’ll totally be fine.”

“Wait,” Steve looks down at her. “Wait, what did you just say?”

Kate gives him a big, overly toothy smile. “Hi.”

“We’re fucked, aren’t we,” he tugs her close by her shoulder as Mr. Fantastic shoves past them.

“Oh, yeah.”                            

..

Kate’s initial thought that sitting next to Steve was a sign of respect is, apparently, wrong.

“It might be some sort of chemical—" McCoy is saying, and between Stark, McCoy, and Richards, Kate has been interrupted no less than five times. Even Steve looks a little annoyed on her behalf, and he looks like he’s getting ready to intervene when she slams her hands on the table.

“Will you all _shut up?_ ”

“Miss Bishop,” McCoy says. “Would you mind?”

“It’s Hawkeye, for one. And yes, I do mind. Since I _actually_ know what’s going on here, I’d appreciate your attention, so we don’t waste time with any more theories and can start getting answers.”

McCoy, at least, looks interested and properly chagrined. “My apologies, Hawkeye.”

“It’s magic.” She says, raising her hand to stem Tony’s questions. “Wiccan inadvertently bespelled us to,” she wrinkles her nose. “Um, be able to identify, shall we say, compatible mates.”

“Compatible mates?” McCoy repeats.

“Soulmates,” Natasha clarifies. “What we have? Soulmarks.”

Billy looks at them all before hiding his head in his hands. “I didn’t realize I was doing it. It was right before I fell asleep and I just—I said I wished there was a way for people to know who they were supposed to be with.”

“Seriously, do none of you read fanfiction?” Teddy asks with a significant look at Natasha. “The person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with. Can be platonic or romantic. You can have multiple soulmates—"

“What we have here is a first words soulmate situation,” Natasha says. “The first words your soulmate—or presumed soulmate—says to you appear on your skin.”

“Wait,” Banner starts to look a little green, in the going-to-be-violently-ill way, not the Hulk-out way. “ _Soulmate?_ ”

“Soulmate?” Steve looks from Banner to Billy to Bucky to Kate, _stares_ at her.

"I'm confused," Tony waves his hand to silence them. "How does the Black Widow know so much about fanfiction?"

"I'm confused," Bobbi mimics. "Why are you focusing on the least important part of what Natasha's saying?"

“In the interest of fairness to Wiccan,” Strange sweeps in with the drama required of the Sorcerer Supreme, effectively interrupting the outbreak of bickering, “what testing I’ve done to the enchantment, accidental though it may be, indicates that it is a sound spell. The matches are not simply his projection as to who would pair well with whom.”

“Of course not,” Wanda glowers. “He’s not a child smashing dolls together, saying, ‘now kiss!’ he’s a grown man.”

“I don’t like this,” Barnes leans back in his chair, glaring at the ceiling. “I don’t need anybody telling me what to do or how to feel. Not some kid, not about who to love.”

“Bucky, in the short time I’ve known you, you’ve proven to be the most contrary bastard I’ve ever met, so I don’t expect this to affect you too damn much,” Kate shoots back. “Nobody’s telling you anything. At best, consider it a—a gentle suggestion. Right, Billy?”

“Right,” Billy looks like he wishes the floor would open up and swallow him whole, which, tough, man. We can’t always get what we want.

“Soulmate doesn’t equal love,” Strange starts to explain.

“And no one is saying you have to act on it—right, Hawkeye?” Steve looks over at her.

“Right, exactly. And Barnes, if you did what people _suggested_ you do even _some_ of the time, I would be less three cracked ribs and a bruised humerus. So keep that in mind, okay?” Kate leans forward. “Literally. _Literally_ all you had to do was _hold your position_ —"

“Hawkeye!” Steve snaps. “The topic at hand. We’ve got enough problems today without borrowing yesterday’s.”

“There weren’t any problems yesterday,” Bucky mutters, like she’s not sitting three feet from him with a black eye. “It was the right move, Steve—"

“That wound up provoking the Hulk into throwing Iron Man on me?”

“How was I supposed to know that was going to happen, Hawkeye?”

Kate feels like someone punched her in the gut. Left arm, lovely script, _How was I supposed to know that was going to happen, Hawkeye?_

“By using your common _sense_ —" she says, almost on autopilot.

“Hey!” Steve leans forward, cutting off Kate and Bucky’s line of sight to one another. She wonders if he does it consciously or unconsciously; if he’s figured out that if Kate and Bucky can’t see each other when they get on a roll, they don’t yell at one another; much like fighting cats. “We’ll discuss that later. Now, can we try and figure out this soulmate thing?”

“Unfortunately,” Strange continues as though nothing has interrupted him. “I haven’t yet been able to find a way to reverse the enchantment. Wiccan is—very powerful.”

“I’ll help, if I can. To fix it. Or—whatever needs to be done,” Billy says without hesitation.

“Thank you, Wiccan. Perhaps together, we can reverse it,” Strange nods, and Kate is thankful that at least one person has a level head about this because it’s certainly not her.

“I want to know what we’re going to do about the perpetrator,” Reed Richards' voice is low and dangerous. “That kind of power needs to be controlled.”

“Perpetrator?” Teddy stands, turning green and huge.

“Controlled?” A wind that only affects Wanda starts to whip her hair, the red light of her power building around her.

“You wanna go, Bendy Boy?” Agitated enough to be blurred at the edges, Tommy is vibrating with the effort to hold still.

“Guys, it’s fine—" Billy looks a little ashen.

“He’s on my team. It’s my responsibility.” Kate stares at Reed Richards, lets her glare drift to every member on the Fantastic Four side of the table. “He didn’t do this maliciously, or even consciously.” Her glare travels back to Bucky. “He is not telling you who to love, or whatever. Whatever our marks are, it’s not Wiccan playing matchmaker, because if it was I can think of more than one match that would be very different. The spell—or whatever we want to call it—is for _soulmates_ , people who in some manner or another complement who we are on a fundamental level.”

“Obviously,” Strange says, droll. “I would not have pegged Hawkeye as my soulmate.”

As one, the room turns toward him.

“Um, _what_?” Kate manages, completely losing the thread of her righteous indignation.

“The other Hawkeye, Hawkeye,” Strange looks almost bored.

Every head whips towards Clint, and a smile spreads slowly across Kate’s face.

“Don’t say it, Hawkeye—" Clint warns.

“You wouldn’t have—" Kate starts, smirking.

“Don’t say it—"

“— _pegged_ Hawkeye—"

“Dammit, Katie—"

“ _He_ said it.”

“Could we focus?” Sue Storm finally speaks up. “I think the real question we need to worry about is if this phenomenon is going to spread from us to civilians, and what we do if it _is_ permanent.”

“I agree with Sue,” Hank says with a nod.

“You would,” Reed mutters mutinously.

“If the—soulmarks—are infectious, so to speak,” Hank says loudly, ignoring Richards, “Then we’re going to have to decide what we tell the world—but as Steve said, let’s not borrow trouble. I think our main focus should be on reversal.”

“We might also want to do some tests,” Tasha locks eyes with Teddy for a moment. “With volunteer marked pairs or groups. Are people who are marked linked, somehow? Is there a biological imperative to, to,” Tasha looks at all the faces staring at her, “Well, to bond.”

“Bond?” Reed frowns at her so hard he looks a little like a shar-pei.

“Have sex,” she clarifies.

A very small explosion seems to take place in the room. Reed Richards gets redder and redder, Johnny Storm actually flames on, Strange pinches the bridge of his nose, and Tony just grins.

“So, who are we—paired?—with?” Wolverine scratches lazily at his neck. “I’m guessing some of you know already.”

“I don’t think we need to share,” Johnny says, almost before Wolverine has stopped speaking. “That’s not necessary, right? Sharing?”

“I don’t think we should be required to share that information,” is Natasha’s opinion. “If, as a group, you decide to share—or participate in the tests-I think that would be fine, but there’s no reason to,” she shrugs. “Unless it starts affecting our work or our health.”

“Agreed,” Kate tilts her head towards Steve, who nods.

“Perhaps it would be safer for all of us if we—removed Mr. Kaplan’s powers.” Reed says, just as everyone's calmed down again.

The silence changes from resigned to stunned in an instant.

“ _Excuse_ me?” Kate is the first to find her voice. “You wanna say that again, Rubberman?”

Wolverine barks out a laugh.

And Magneto and Wanda are getting ready to start some shit, Kate can see the metal carafes and some of the furniture start to shake out of the corner of her eye, but Billy is also her teammate and, perhaps more importantly, her friend, which is why she feels it is her duty to launch herself across the table and punch Reed Richards right in his smug face.

She gets two blows in before something strong and cold slips around her waist, pulling her off of Richards.

She fights against it, throwing herself against the restraint, spitting out, “And he’s _Wiccan_ to you, you insufferable asshat—" pushing against the metal around her waist in earnest now, Magneto is _rude_ , thinking he can dole out all the hurt for that _bullshit_ —before realizing that the metal is arm-shaped…and attached to Bucky Barnes.

“Jesus,” he sounds a little stunned, continuing to pull her back from Richards as Tony helps him up. “You’re as bad as Steve was, picking fights with guys three times his size.”

“I wanna see if he bounces when I throw him out the window,” she growls, struggling against his metal arm. “Let me _go,_ Barnes.”

“Doll, I would be happy to let you do that, but it would drag out this meeting and I think we’d all like to get on with our day.”

Reed Richards is glaring at her, a bruise starting to darken around his eye.

“ _I will fuck you up so bad_ ,” she hisses, scratching at Bucky's arm to no avail.

“I’d like to see you try,” he snaps back.

“Magneto sort of likes me,” she says. “He’ll let me help.”

Magneto shrugs. “Like is a strong word, Hawkeye, but yes, I would.”

“ _Boom_ ,” she says. “Watch your back, Richards. Ain’t nobody fresher than my motherfuckin’ clique.”

“Kate,” David shakes his head. “We talked about this. No. But,” he turns to Reed, “she’s right. You come near Billy, we'll—"

“You won’t come near Billy,” Tommy finishes.

The Young Avengers have closed ranks around Billy, and when Kate crosses her arms to convey, through gaze, just how much she wants to murder Reed, her elbow knocks against a cold metal arm.

That’s new.

_What?_ Bucky mouths at her with a shrug.

Steve stands on Bucky’s other side.

And _that’s_ how you shut down Reed Richards.

..

“Hawkeye, hang back?” Steve calls.

She and Hawkeye stop in the door, prompting a laugh from Steve. “Not you, Clint.”

She exchanges a few signs with him— _You okay, girl-y?—_

_\--I’ll be fine, go. Thanks.—_

“So, gentlemen,” Kate sits crosses to them. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Steve turns his hand towards her, and she sees her familiar chicken-scratch curling around his palm. It’s his shield-hand, and she supposes it might look like his shield to most people, but to her it looks a little like a bullseye. _We can do this, we can totally do this, between us we’ve got like, three magicians we can call._ She’d feel ickier about literally putting a target on him it if he didn’t _literally_ march into battle with one strapped to his arm. He then unbuttons his shirt and pulls it open to reveal the same writing she’s got on her left arm stamped plainly over his heart, _Up and at’em, punk._

“That sounds like the sort of thing that you say when you’re slapping someone’s ass,” Kate says. “Was there an accompanying ass slap?”

Steve turns beet red and Bucky laughs outright.

“Good to know,” she says, stripping off her shooting glove and rolling up her sleeves, presenting her arms to them.

“Wondered why you had that on,” Bucky tips his head towards her glove, reaching behind his neck to yank his shirt off.

Steve’s print curves from the top of Bucky’s right shoulder, down his collarbone to above his heart, _Did you just wake up or have you been up all night?_ ; her words radiate out from his bionic arm, broken into three parts and written between the scars that starburst out from where metal meets man _Bucky, in the short time I’ve known you/ you’ve proven to be the most contrary bastard I’ve ever met/ so I don’t expect this to affect you too damn much_.

“Sorry for calling you a contrary bastard,” Kate is the first to break the silence. “So, what are we thinking? Do we want to tell our respective teams?”

Steve shrugs.

“Don’t see how it’s their business,” Bucky says. “We made a decision that we don’t have to tell people unless things start to get weirder, then we don’t have to. Shouldn’t, to set an example.”

“Well, that’s great for you,” Kate tries to keep the bite out of her voice. “But my team isn’t like your team, and since I’m fairly certain that I’m part of the reason this happened—I might like to have someone to talk to this about.”

“Never said you _couldn’t_ ,” Bucky crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “Just that you shouldn’t have to.”

“This is so ridiculous,” Kate says after they stare at each other in silence for a few minutes. “I’m going to kill Billy.”

“After you went to all that trouble to defend him?” Steve gazes at her, eyes half closed. “Nah. You wouldn’t.”

The silence is a little less awkward this time.

“So,” Bucky rocks back on his heels. “When do we, you know. _Bond_?” He waggles his eyebrows in what is maybe an attempt at being lascivious and succeeds only in making Kate laugh so hard she snorts. “C’mon, soulmates,” and the word doesn’t sound so odd in Bucky’s voice, “I owe one of you dinner for mission stuff and one of you dinner for drinking the last of the juice.”

“Can we do sushi?” Kate asks as they pile into the elevator. “Tasha told me you guys order the whole menu, and I want to see that.”

"You and Natalia talk about us?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddy and Natasha beta each other's fic.


	2. Occurrences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's trying to get their bearings after the spell.

“Reed,” Wanda calls to the retreating backs of the Fantastic Four. “If you come near my son, I will unmake you. Are we clear?”

“Don’t threaten me, Wanda,” Reed whirls around. “I don’t think the other Avengers will take kindly to that sort of—"

“Settle down, Reed,” Ben sets a heavy hand on Richards’ shoulder, which he shakes off before storming down the hallway. “Don’t worry, Red, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Wanda’s eyes go wide. “I will hold you to that, Ben Grimm.” Wanda tilts her head and looks at him—really looks at him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

* * *

 

“So,” Clint says, sliding into the booth next to Kate. “This is weird.”

Kate, for no apparent reason, starts laughing, and attempts to hide it behind her hands. “You should have said Strange.”

Kate is a terrible person, but Clint loves her anyway.

“So, Bossman,” she says, even though he’s never the boss, ruffling his hair. “You and Strange, huh?”

“Weird.”

“It’s _Strange_ ,” Kate corrects, then muffles her laughter into his shoulder. “Sorry. That was the last time.”

“Was it now.”

“…no?”

“What do we say about lying, Hawkeye?”

“Only do it if you won’t get caught?”

“Exactly.”

“How are you doing, though? Really?” She peers at him out of the corner of her eye.

“We’re not boning, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t, but thanks for the information,” Kate does this weird thing with her lips, twisting them to the side and wrinkling her nose. “Really, though.”

“It’s—he’s civil? Nicer than he’s been to me in a while. I’m trying not to say how much I hate magic around him, so that might be helping.”

“Probably. Hey, maybe he can help you not be in traction for a quarter of every year,” her tone is light and she turns the corners of her lips up, like she’s trying to smile, but it’s a poor cover for actual concern.

“I don’t get injured on _purpose,_ you know?” He heaves a sigh and rests his head on top of hers. “Can we talk about something else? Like, who’s your soulmate? Do you know yet?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Ohh,” he pokes her a couple of times. “Pushed a button.”

She turns and bites his shoulder, because Kate Bishop is a terrible human being.

“Lucky is a bad influence on you,” he decides as she slathers guacamole on her slice of pizza. “Hey, give me some—"

“Get your own,” she elbows him away from her dip. “No, wait, these are yours, though—"

She shoves a bowl in front of him.

“Ugh, carrots?”

“When was the last time you had a vegetable, Clint? Do you _want_ scurvy?”

Well, no, he doesn’t, but there’s something in the line of her shoulders and the way her jaw is clenched and, no, this isn’t about scurvy. Or _just_ about scurvy, anyway.

“That’s why I wanted the guac,” he mutters while crunching aggressively on a carrot.

She just piles more guacamole on to her pizza, which might not _technically_ be an avoidance technique, but is, in this instance, definitely Kate avoiding talking about things.

“Your soulmate can’t be that bad, Hawkeye,” he reassures her, then bolts up straight. “It’s not Richards, is it? Oh, Jesus, I am so sorry—"

“It’s not Richards. I would have done more than just punch him.”

“Is it Johnny? It’s not Tommy, is it? I hate that kid.”

“No you don’t.”

“No, I don’t, but he’s all wrong for you, girly-girl.”

“I’m not ready to talk about it, Hawkeye. It’s—complicated?”

“Is he married? Is he a she? Is it Natasha? Oh, God, you two will kill me—"

“Clint! No, it’s not Natasha, not that I would have minded. He’s not married. Stop grilling me.”

“Okay.” He puts his head back on her shoulder, scratching the back of her neck in the way that always makes her shoulders relax. “You got it, bosslady.”

They eat in companionable silence for a few minutes.

“It’s complicated,” she says without prompting, “because there’s two of them.”

“That’s not so complicated,” he says, because with as weird as their lives are, it’s really not. “I was expecting you to be all, _It’s Nick Fury._ Two soulmates isn’t strange. I mean, unless they’re an established couple or something.”

“Clint,” she says. “Stop talking.”

He does for a while.

“You said strange,” she points out.

“I’m never going to be able to call him Stephen,” he says. “That’s just—eurgh. Why aren’t you and I soulmates? Would have been easier.”

“Hawkeye,” she says in her I-despair-of-you voice. “We didn’t need someone to _tell_ us we were soulmates.”

“Oh. _Ohhhh_.”

* * *

 

“The whole thing makes me uneasy,” Steve says it in an undertone, eyes darting around furtively, like he’s afraid of being overheard. “All this—soulmate stuff.”

“What?” Natasha puts on her blandest face. “Is Bucky not your soulmate?”

“What—? No, that’s not—Natasha, that’s not the point. I’m worried about how this is going to affect our dynamics as a team. As teams, plural, since the X-Men are affected, too.”

“Is that what you’re really worried about?”

“The whole concept of soulmates doesn’t really sit well with me. So what, I’m just walking around with part of a soul? And I just have to take the universe’s word for it that this person or people are necessary for my life? Nah. I don’t buy it.”

 _Person or people,_ Natasha thinks smugly. _Gotcha._

“That’s not what soulmates are about,” is what she says as she steals some of his fries. “I mean, maybe, to a certain extent. Finding someone who completes you perfectly.” She pulls a face as she says it, and Steve knows how she feels about that sort of thing. “But _I_ don’t buy _that._ The point of soulmates is someone who—who makes you think. Who makes you want to be the best version of yourself. Who maybe helps you _be_ the best version of yourself. It’s not just warm mushy feelings—you know how much I hate those—"

“No you don’t,” Steve interrupts.

“ _Shhhh_. I have a reputation to maintain, Rogers, unlike you. Bleeding heart.”

Steve puts a finger to his lips. “I have a reputation to maintain, Romanoff,” he mimics. “Do you want to scandalize conservative politicians?”

Natasha throws her head back and laughs at that. “Rogers, I regret to inform you that ship sailed the first time you marched in Pride wearing the bisexual flag version of your uniform. The politicians are already scandalized.”

“You’d be surprised at how many calls I still get,” he muses. “Poor naïve Steve Rogers who just needs a nice knowledgeable politician to help him—"

“The point,” Natasha continues, “is that, whatever you and Hawkeye and Strange and Wiccan decide to tell us, or try to convince us of, this whole soulmate thing? I think we should embrace it while it lasts.”

“Embrace it how, exactly?”

“Why are you paired with the person you’re paired with? Or people,” she says after looking at him hard for a minute. “I don’t believe that any of us are incomplete or missing a part of our souls. But how does that person fit in with your jagged edges? How do they complement the smooth ones?”

“That’s very poetic, Natasha.”

“You’re not the only artist here, Rogers,” she smirks. “You and Bucky, that’s not a surprise. You’ve been looking out for each other your entire lives. And he’s dark, you’re light, but you’re both willing to go the distance for beauty, freedom, truth, and love, so on and so on. I’m guessing you’re having more trouble wrapping your head around Kate. Which is surprising, honestly.”

Steve seems to be having trouble locating his jaw, but he manages. “How—?”

“Rogers. Please. You have a bullseye on your hand. Also, I recognize the handwriting. I _am_ a superspy.” Not to mention both Kate and Steve are filled to the brim with _FITE ME_ , but honestly, if he hasn’t seen that by now her telling him isn’t going to make a difference. She almost feels bad for Bucky.

Steve does finds his voice, eventually. “Okay, now you have to tell me yours. Please? Nat, we agreed not to tell anyone, and if they think I told you they’ll kill me.”

“Not telling you a thing,” she smirks again, just as Sam plops down next to her, throwing his arm over her shoulders.

“Hey, soulmate!” He says, pressing a kiss to Nat’s cheek. She rolls her eyes at him, but it’s more habit than anything else.

“Well,” Steve says. “I see your point?”

* * *

 

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Bucky says as she steers him to a table in the corner of the cafeteria. “Sif _and_ Jane _and_ Thor?”

“I know!” Darcy bounces on her toes.

Bucky starts to say something, then shakes his head at himself. “No, actually, I kind of get it? Sif and Jane have done the exact same thing—"

“I _know_!” Darcy couldn’t feel prouder if she’d arranged the match herself. “Like, Sif fought tooth and nail to get all those uber-bro Asgard warriors to take her seriously, and Jane is a woman in a STEM field. Like, they’re both fighting the same fight on different battlefields.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, I stole that from Sif. Did you know Asgardians get all word-vomity too? I did not. Sif is a total word vomiter.”

Bucky looks from Darcy to his plate and back to Darcy. “Please don’t say vomit again.”

“Done and done.”

“How’s your match going?” Bucky starts to make a face as he says the word _match_ , but manages to get his expression under control.

“Eh, you know how Banner is. All _forsooth, alas, I am a monster_ , et cetera, et cetera. And I’m all, dude, you’ve worn those clothes three days in a row because you’re on a science bender, that’s not scary that’s ridiculous. Bruce Banner is probably the least intimidating person I know.”

“But—"

“And I think the Hulk likes me, remember last month’s Doombot incident?”

“Which one?”

“There was just the one last month, Barnes. Keep up. But he started ripping Doombots apart before I could even try tazing them.”

“Well, if anyone can wear down another human being, it’s you, Lewis,” Bucky gives her his patented charming grin.

“I don’t like your backhanded compliments, Barnes. They make me all frowny inside.”

And just for that, she starts eating his nachos.

“Everything I do makes you frowny inside.”

“Only when you mix up *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. I like this soulmate stuff, though. I think,” Darcy taps her lips thoughtfully with a chip. “As much as Richards and the YA were freaking out about it, I think they’re the only ones.”

“What, have you been doing a broad survey?”

“Maybe. How do you feel about it?”

Bucky does a really great impression of a deer in the headlights, eyes darting around the cafeteria as if someone’s going to pop up and start judging him.

“I mean, everyone’s just kind of assuming you and Steve—oh my God. Is everyone wrong? Is it Tony? Oh, or Natasha?”

Darcy likes Bucky, tries to respect his privacy, but this is the kind of information she _needs_.

“Definitely not Natalia,” he mutters, and that makes sense to Darcy because there’s probably a lot of attempted murdering of each other in their pasts and potentially some in their futures. “ _Or_ Tony.”

“Not Steve?” She fishes, earning a look from Bucky. “So, yes to Steve. Yes to someone else, too, though? Why are you being so tight-lipped about this? Is it Johnny Storm? Oh! No! Reed. No, wait, I guess Pietro, and it’s super awkward because his nephew is the one who did the spell. Am I right?”

Bucky looks a little stunned. So a no to all three, then. She’ll figure it out sooner rather than later. She’s always been good at logic problems.

* * *

"Bub, I work alone.”

“Strangely enough, I know that.”

Wolverine stares at Daredevil.

“So,” the man in red says. “Can I assume the meeting at Avengers Tower I skipped would have explained why I have ‘Bub, I work alone’ on my neck?”

“You can,” Wolverine lights a cigar.

“God, Logan, why do you have to smoke the cheap stuff?”

“Smell bother you, DD?”

Daredevil huffs out a sigh. “How about I buy you a beer and you tell me what I missed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is set up a little differently than I originally intended. While I wanted to keep the focus on the primary three (Steve, Kate, and Bucky) I wanted to give a feel for how everyone else is processing this-I also made it a goal that since a few of the first-words exchanges happen semi-privately, I didn't necessarily want to keep cutting to them, I wanted to establish situations where the characters themselves would reveal to another character who their soulmate(s) are (is).  
> There are a few exceptions; people that I didn't think would feel the need or desire to tell others, and those are the snippets that frame the chapter. I hope it worked, if not, let me know how you'd rather see it, and I can try to alter the viewpoints!  
> The next chapter should be more straightforward.


	3. Absurdities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically, Kate did sign up for this.  
> But seriously, guys. Chill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More soulmate reveals! Hanging out! DUM-E!

Kate and Steve are caucusing about the whole soulmates situation in their off-hours. Steve seems to think if they put extra effort into looking worried it will make it seem like they’re doing more than they are. Kate agrees.

So. Theoretically. If someone asks. They went to dinner to discuss the issue, and are now on Steve and Bucky’s floor, further discussing the soulmate problem.

What they are actually doing—what they will deny to the last—is marathoning Say Yes to the Dress while Steve paints her toenails and Bucky braids her hair. As Steve had put it, there’s only so much worrying they can reasonably do. Bobbi’s team is coming in tomorrow, so are the X-Men who weren’t here today; Kate can either uselessly worry or make Bucky be nice to her after the Incident the other day with the Hulk and Iron Man.

This isn’t the first time this has happened—for all that she and Steve are usually at loggerheads when they’re Hawkeye and Captain America, as Steve and Kate they get along pretty well. It had taken some time, of course, and Bucky had somehow been no help at all and very helpful.

It was probably a year ago, she thinks, as Bucky sections her hair. She’d barged into their apartment after she and Steve had a huge blowup over a mission.

_“Just who do you think you are, Rogers?” she’d snapped._

_“Captain America,” he’d snapped back._

_Bucky had just turned the volume up on the TV._

_“We’re just as legitimate a team as you are, and I’m sick of you undermining that fact.” She said through gritted teeth._

_“I’m not undermining—okay, maybe I’m undermining. I’m not trying to, though,” he insisted. “I’m honestly just trying to undermine you.”_

_She had gaped at him, jaw slack._

_“Excuse me?”_

_“You and Clint are the most breakable people I know, and it makes me nervous—“_

_Bucky had laughed loud from the sofa._

_“Man, it’s like lookin’ in a mirror for you, isn’t it, Steve?”_

_“What?”_

_“Looking in a mirror. That,” Bucky had jabbed his thumb at them, not bothering to turn around, “is exactly how I felt for the first part of your life, when the trash cans you got dumped into were bigger than you were.”_

_Steve made a face like he’d eaten a lemon. Then he’d looked at her, eyes narrow.\_

_She had glared right back._

_“Look, I think it’s pretty clear that I’m going to continue doing what I think is right no matter how uncomfortable that makes you, so you can stop being passive-aggressive in meetings. Right?”_

_Steve had opened his mouth—snapped it shut._

_“Oh, for God’s sake,” she snapped, kicking Steve’s feet out from under him, toppling him to the floor and pressing her knee to his jugular. “There. Now if anyone asks you can say you agreed to that under duress—hey, is this Project Runway?”_

_“It’s our favorite season,” Bucky said. “You should stay and watch, shouldn’t she, Steve?”_

_Steve had gotten his hand under her knee at that point, shoving her off of him and sending her sliding back a few feet which was actually sort of fun._

_“Sure,” he’d said after a minute. “She has to help make popcorn, though.”_

Which was fair. Kate makes the best popcorn.

Still, that was almost a year ago. And sure, she spends time with the boys, but not usually so obviously. And nobody’s commented on it. That’s weird, right? Slightly suspicious?

Or maybe, she muses as Bucky tilts her head forward to catch a wayward strand of hair, it’s weird that they spend enough time together anyway that this time isn’t looked on as odd.

“Hey,” she sits up to say something about this fact.

“ _Hey_ ,” Steve pushes her back with his shoulders. “Do you want arrows on your toes or squiggly lines? Stop moving.”

“Sorry,” she says, then pinches the back of his neck for being rude. “See if I let you keep hijacking my Instagram to put up pictures of nail art.”

“Darcy will let me use hers,” he says smoothly. “And I bet she wouldn’t be as picky about the designs.”

“I let you do stars sometimes. And trees. And the galaxy ones, I liked the galaxy nails,” she says. Which: “Is this weird?”

“Is what weird?” Bucky asks around a mouthful of bobby pins. “Scroll down so I can see the last step.”

She obliges, scrolling down on his tablet to the last picture in the hair tutorial. “This,” she says. “Like, do I spend too much time with you? Nobody thought it was suspicious when I came to hang out with you.”

“It’s team leader Tuesday,” Steve says. “Everybody’s used to it by now.”

“Since when do you care what everyone else thinks?” Bucky points out. “Yeah, this was a good one. I liked this one,” he places another bobby pin.

“My turn?” Kate says once Bucky’s hands leave her hair. Bucky likes getting his hair messed with, too.

“No!” Steve clamps a hand around her ankle. “You’re not dry yet—do you want to smudge the art?”

“Oh my God, Steve. I regret the day I ever showed you Pinterest. And stop changing the subject. Like, am I that weird single person who hangs out with the married couple? _I am the weird single person_ —“

“We’re not married,” Bucky interrupts dryly.

“Oh, please. You’re totally married.”

“ _You’re_ a little married,” Steve mutters. He’s moved on to the topcoat, which, good. Means she can kick him soon. “And anyway. So what if it’s weird? What about our lives isn’t weird?”

He has a point.

“Can I just say,” Bucky continues, tugging Kate to lean on him. “That I _hate_ Pnina Tornai?”

“We know,” Steve rests his head on Kate’s knee.

“You tell us every week,” she adds.

She doesn’t get around to kicking Steve, but she does wake up with him drooling on her knee and her hand in his hair, Bucky’s chin digging into her scalp where he’s used her noggin as a pillow. Which, that’s not normal, right?

She decides that no, it’s probably not normal, before the drone of a late-night infomercial and the insistent body heat of two supersoldiers lulls her back sleep.

* * *

“You know,” Kate says, shuffling the handouts. “When I said I was going to take responsibility for this, I didn’t actually think I would be responsible for everything.”

“Oh, come on,” David looks up from the computer. “You love it when you can make everyone listen to you.”

“This is true.”

“And I have signed statements assuring me you will have our undivided attention,” Phil leads his team in.

Kate watches as Bobbi greets the SHIELD delegation, hugs and handshakes and skirting around the sweater-wearing tiny brown-haired woman.

“You ready for things to get awkward?” Kate mutters to David.

“Why do you think I’m here? I want a front-row seat.”

Kate rolls her eyes before turning to Phil’s team. “Okay, so. We just got word that the X-Men are running late, as is Hill, so we’re going to get started. Welcome? I’m Hawkeye, and this is Prodigy, and we’re here to explain the mysterious markings you recently found on your body.”

“So,” Kate attempts to smile. “A magic-using member of one of our teams inadvertently cast a spell that put the first words a person—or people, as the case may be—are going to say to you. Well, the first words _after_ the spell was initiated.”

“Well, yes,” says a man with ridiculously curly hair and an accent—Scottish, maybe? “We know that already.”

“So I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that some of you have exchanged words?”

“Well, we _do_ speak to one another on a fairly regular basis,” says the woman Bobbi had avoided.

“I’m going to stop you right there—?”

“Simmons.”

“Simmons. The person you exchanged those words with—or will exchange those words with—“ she shakes her head and tries again. “The spell was intended to help a person find their soulmate or soulmates.”

“Dude, like fanfiction!” the woman next to Phil crows.

“ _Soulmates?_ ” Agent May interrupts, standing so abruptly she upends her chair. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, you know, someone you have a strong affinity towards.” David chimes in. “Maybe they’re really similar to you, or they balance out some aspect of—“

“Oh, hell, no,” says Hunter. “Bloody fucking hell _no_.”

“I don’t know,” says the biggest guy in the group—Mack, Kate thinks. “There are worse things.”

“I have to agree with Mack,” says the curly-haired Scottish guy, a red flush creeping up his neck as he darts a glance at Mack.

May and Hunter are glaring at each other. “ _Absolutely not_ ,” Agent May jabs her finger at Hunter before storming out.

“I am bloody well not done protesting!” Hunter hollers after her before racing to follow, their yells fading as the door closes behind them.

Phil pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Are we excused, sir?” the Scottish guy asks.

Phil waves his hand at his team. “Take five.”

Bobbi hovers near Phil for a moment before taking off after Simmons.

“That almost made us seem functional,” David muses.

“David,” Kate tries to keep her voice steady. “That was SHIELD. Not even all of SHIELD. Can you imagine what the X-Men are going to do? Oh my God, David. The X-Men are going to kill me.”

“Relax,” David’s eyes flick to the woman standing at Coulson’s side. “Daisy here is a master hacker, she can make you a new ID, and if she won’t I know how to, now. No worries, boss.”

"Jean Grey is going to kill me with her mind."

“Wait,” Daisy’s eyes widen, ignoring Kate's imminent demise. “You’re _that_ David?”

“ _Excuse_ me.” David grins, then grins _harder_. “Wow.”

“Huh,” Kate says as they stare at each other. “I wonder if you’re the ones who create the real-world _Matrix_?”

Daisy and David ignore her and Phil drops his head to his hands.

Kate can sympathize.

* * *

Nick Fury is here.

Kate is almost certain that he’s supposed to be dead.

“So,” he says, standing in front of her, arms crossed and eye glaring. “You’re the one giving the debriefs about these word tattoos?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Billy is so, so dead.

“Yes, sir,” she manages to get out. “Um. You haven’t been informed of anything with this?”

“Coulson was saying something about soulmates? And Wiccan.”

“That’s about it. The X-Men are headed in, if you want to stay and listen to the whole thing—“

She breaks off as the SHIELD group flies in, mixing with some of the X-Men. Wasn’t someone supposed to tell her when they got here?

“Pardon me, excuse me, you’re looking good but I’m looking better,” Tommy says as he shoves his way through the gaggle of people. “Hawkeye, the X-Group is here.”

“Yes, Speed, thank you, I can see that.”

“Wait,” Tommy goes stock-still, a weird occurrence. “Mary-Sue? Is that you?”

“I go by Daisy or Quake now,” she says, and behind her David punches the air and whoops.

Kate doesn't swear, but Phil does.

"All right," she says after realizing that David and Tommy and Daisy are just going to be staring at each other. "Um, welcome, X-Men, and thank you for being here with us today-"

“Think fast, old man!” Pietro blasts past the SHIELD-and-former-SHIELD delegation, and Kate sees her life flash before her eyes as Fury is shoved to the side.

_I am going to die right now and it is all Erik Lensherr and his progeny’s fault._

_Also, my life did not have nearly enough Steve and Bucky in it_ , which is a surprising enough discovery that she almost misses Fury’s response of “What the fuck did you say to me, roadrunner?” and the moment when Quicksilver _runs into a wall_.

Kate will literally remember this moment until her dying day, which might actually happen sooner rather than later because she’s laughing so hard she’s crying and she can’t breathe.

When David catches his breath next to her, he manages, “I think this is the happiest day of my life.”

Pietro’s mark is on his chest. Fury’s are on his foot, and the day gets better because he says, “They’re on my foot because if you call me an old man again I will break my foot off in your ass and you can have them.”

* * *

The X-Men actually manage to make it through more of the briefing than SHIELD did before chaos erupts.

“ _Gambit!_ ” Kate shouts. “Sit down and _shut up!_ ”

“Did you hear that?” Gambit leans towards Maria Hill, who has been side-eying him the whole lecture. “This lil’ Yankee, tellin’ me what to do?” He slings his arm across Maria’s shoulders in what Kate guesses he means as a show of solidarity.

“Get your arm off of me or I will remove it for you,” Hill says, leveling Gambit with the most terrifying look Kate has seen this side of Natasha.

“Dat ain’t no way to speak to your soulmate, cher,” Gambit starts, and Maria has him flat on his ass before he can finish.

“What did I say about this arm?” she asks.

Kate decides that she needs-nay, deserves-a margarita in a Big Gulp.

* * *

“Can you come talk Storm off a ledge?” Tony rushes into the half-empty room that Kate’s been attempting to finish her debriefing in for an hour. Stark looks harried and overcaffinated. “DUM-E keeps dousing him because he keeps flaming on,” he snags her wrist and drags her down the hall. “And didn’t you two date? Or something?”

“Uh _no_. we went to the same school—“

“And your dad was all gung ho for you two to get together before he got all bonfire-y. Go _talk_ to him. He’s going to set the Tower on fire.”

“Kick him out, then.”

“I can’t. He’s invoking Reed Haven.”

“Ugh,” Kate wrinkles her nose as Tony punches a button on the elevator. “Richards being shittier than usual?”

“He’s not happy with his soulmate, I guess.”

“It’s not Sue?”

“Nope,” Tony leans over and says under his breath, “Sue and Hank are soulmates, apparently.”

“What!”

“I know, right?”

“That’s _adorable_.”

“Adorable? You’re weird.”

“Science nerd love is always adorable. So Reed and Sue aren’t soulmates at all?—what, don’t look at me like that. People can have more than one soulmate. You do.”

Tony’s expression is a delightful mix of incredulous rage and overwhelming smugness. “How did you know?”

“Please, Stark. You were walking around this morning with your hand in Rhodey’s back pocket. I mean, _obviously_ you and he and you and Pepper are soulmates. It’s cute. And no,” she holds her hand up to silence him. “I don’t need the gory details.”

“They’re soulmates too,” the words burst out of him, like he’s just been _waiting_ for someone to tell them to. “All three of us. We’re so attractive it’s not fair, I almost feel bad for everybody else.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No I _don’t_ ,” Tony crows. “My life is _so awesome_. I’ve never been happier because of someone else’s crappy love life, so thanks, Feathers.”

Kate drops her head into her hands. “Ugh, shut up, please. I’m trying to keep that on the DL.”

“What, that you and Tommy and David have such bad taste in boyfriends that Billy _mmphghh—“_

Kate slaps her hand over his mouth. “Shut. Up.”

Tony pantomimes locking his lips shut so she drops her hand.

“You know what else would keep me quiet? Telling me about your soulmates.”

“Soulmates? Why plural?”

“You’ve got two, right?” Tony looks at her searchingly. “Three? Four? You and your whole team? C’mon, Bishop. Give me something.”

The elevator dings.

“Maybe next time, Stark.”

* * *

 

“Johnny?” Kate calls. The floor is empty, eerily quiet. “Uh. Johnny? This is—oh, hey, DUM-E.”

The robot rolls over her, looking about as forlorn as a robot can. Tony has strapped another DUNCE cap to his head; Kate rolls her eyes and takes it off the robot. “There we go, kiddo. Don’t let Tony get you down.”

She pats DUM-E for a moment or two, because Stark can say what he likes about AI and no AI, DUM-E totally likes getting scritchies. Some of his hardware even whirrs when you do it, and Kate is positive it’s because he’s purring.

“Where’s the firestarter?” she asks, since the torch in question isn’t appearing.

DUM-E makes what is maybe an indignant sound, and starts rolling away from her.

DUM-E has a good head for fire prevention; Kate follows.

He leads her to what Kate had assumed was a massive pile of pillow polyfil; turns out DUM-E has emptied god knows how many fire extinguishers onto Johnny Storm.

“Hi, J,” Kate calls into the foam. “Need a hand?”

“Go away,” he moans.

“Is this about the soulmate thing?”

“Go _away_ ,” he repeats, because Johnny Storm has apparently also turned into a twelve-year-old.

“Tony pulled me out of a meeting to get you to stop setting stuff on fire,” she informs him. “So get your mopey butt up, and let’s get you cleaned off. Come on,” she extends her hand to the pile of foam that is hopefully Johnny, and wiggles her fingers. “Up and at ‘em.”

A sigh; a puff of foam.

“I’ll come with you,” Johnny says, grabbing her hand. “But I won’t be happy about it.”

“Nobody asked you to be happy about it,” she points out, tugging him up. “We’re just asking you set fewer things on fire. Well, DUM-E isn’t, DUM-E loves fire, but Tony is. And me. And everyone who lives and works in the Tower.”

She shoves him in the direction of the chemical showers and goes to rustle up some clothes for him.

* * *

 

“There, now you look like a human and not the Stay-Puft marshmallow man,” she says with a smile. “So, Torchy McGee. What’s with the setting labs on fire thing, anyway?”

“It’s Reed,” Johnny says after a few long minutes of not looking at her.

“Well, yeah. I knew that.”

“You _know_?” and for some reason, he looks horrified.

“Yeah, Tony told me.”

“ _Tony_ knows?”

“Johnny, everybody knows. Reed’s being a dick, probably because of the whole soulmate thing, you invoked the Reed’s-a-dick-sanctuary clause, hence, your presence here.”

Johnny is staring at her.

Wait—

Kate lands next to Johnny with a thump, rattling the lab table. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Reed. Reed _Richards_?”

“Yeah,” Johnny’s face is getting redder by the second.

“Holy _shit_.”

“I know!”

“Wow.”

Kate opens her mouth.

Closes it.

“I got nothing,” she says with a shrug.

“ _I know,”_ Johnny waves his hands. “I know!”

Kate tries. She really does. The laughter bubbles out of her anyway.

“Stop laughing! Stop it! This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me!”

“Johnny,” Kate sobers. “You went to _space_ and were _mutated_ by a _space storm_. Have a little perspective.”

“Kate, what am I gonna do? Why me?”

Kate pats Johnny’s back and it’s very awkward but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“It makes sense, though?” she says tentatively. “I mean. You’re always full steam ahead and he’s always triple-check what you already triple-checked? There’s balance there?”

Johnny looks interested in the split second before he looks horrified.

“He’s married to my sister! He’s _Reed Richards!_ ”

* * *

“Is it too soon for me to be over this?” Kate asks as Bucky wraps her burned hand. “Because I am very much over this.”

Bucky’s eyes meet hers, but he doesn’t say anything.

The burns on her hand aren’t too bad, just uncomfortable and they’ll make shooting a hell of a lot harder, but Johnny hadn’t managed to mar Bucky’s words on her. That had been...a relief Kate hadn’t anticipated.

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “I think it’s kinda interesting.”

She studies Bucky as he finishes taping up the bandage. “If we subtracted the Fantastic Four, sure. Interesting.”

On a whim, she flips her hand over in his and squeezes. Bucky’s lips flick up into a smile until she winces.

“Ow.”

“I don’t know what you expected,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “Your hand is burned, dumbass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been able to focus on anything in a couple of weeks and this chapter has just been sitting in front of me, almost finished, for almost that long, so I just was like, polish it a little and put it up. If I get out of my funk soon I'll maybe polish it up more but I just wanted to get it up and see if maybe I could get the ball rolling. I hope you enjoy!


	4. Bargains and Bets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is bad at interpersonal relationships, and Bucky is aware of these things but likes watching everyone else fumble around their feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait! I have been dealing with chronic pain which has been making it incredibly difficult to focus enough to write and focus. This chapter was originally longer, but this is what I had the staying power to edit. Never fear, though! The bare bones of this fic are finished, it's just a matter of me being able to fine-tune it.  
> Depending on how much of the side-soulmates stories I wind up incorporating, there will be probably two more chapters.  
> Onward!

“Sorry about your hand.”

“It’s okay. It’s been a weird week. Tempers are bound to flare.”

“Ahaha, that’s the funniest. So I can stay with you, right?”

Johnny looks at her with an eager sort of expectancy, like they’ve had a conversation about this and agreed to it and she’s the one that forgot. Kate rubs the bridge of her nose, digging her fingers into the corners of her eyes, trying in vain to push away the headache that’s steadily building.

“Okay, one. No. And two, why?”

“Sue may be under the impression that you are my soulmate.”

Kate isn’t even surprised at anything anymore. “And why would she think that, Johnny?”

“She inferred, okay. It’s not like I _told_ her that, don’t worry.”

“How does she not know about you and Reed?”

“I haven’t told her, and Reed isn’t going to tell her—c’mon, Kate. Please. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ll cook you breakfast.”

Kate keeps her eyes squeezed shut, because the minute she looks at him the jig’s up.

“I think when you went after Reed in the meeting, she thought it had something to do with me. With how much he antagonizes me, and you were retaliating.”

 _That_ gets Kate’s eyes to snap open. “Are you kidding me? Wow. Literally. Wow. Not everything is about you.”

She glares at him, and— _dammit_. She doesn’t know if he did it on purpose, if the whole point of that story was to get her to _look_ at him, but she is now and she _has_ to let him stay with her.

Because Johnny looks like shit. Dark circles under red eyes, his hair is a mess, and he smells slightly singed. He looks, gods help her, desperate and _sad_. Almost like Lucky had, when Lucky had been Pizza Dog fighting tracksuits.

Shit.

“I know Sue’s going to find out sooner rather than later, I just—it’s not her. It’s Reed. He keeps _looking_ at me like—I dunno, he blames me, he wants to kill me, he wants to launch me into a black hole. You won’t even know I’m here!”

 _And it’s sort of my fault anyway,_ Kate’s mind finishes.

She sighs, bracing her forehead on the door. Whatever Johnny says, however he will probably insist that he doesn't actually care what Reed thinks, Kate figures it's got to be eating him up inside. Just a little.

Not that she gets what that's like, or anything. Her relationships with Steve and Bucky are fine, thanks, and she is fine and _everything_ is fine.

“All right. You can stay.”

“Yes! Sweet!” He shoves past her. “Where’s your booze?”

“I didn’t think you were supposed to keep alcohol near an open flame.”

* * *

“Is it married fight Monday already?” Matt says under his breath, sliding Bucky a coffee.

“Oh, yeah,” Bucky pops the lid off and leans back in his chair. “You missed it last week, right after the whole—marks-thing started. It was good. Steve knocked over her coffee and I thought she was gonna throw him out the window.”

“Did we miss the ‘and another thing?’” Matt asks in an undertone.

“Nah, got three minutes til we’re at that point,” Bucky matches Matt’s tone. Steve and Kate’s leadership differences are, if not legendary, at least anecdotal. Bucky is not entirely sure how Kate and Steve are as smart as they are but still don’t realize almost every argument they have follows the same timetable.

It’s clockwork enough that at one point Natalia had even had a betting pool going before everyone else had gotten wise to it—though apparently not before winning a car off of Stark.

“Who’s it gonna be?” Logan pulls up a chair.

“Kate,” Matt declares with a nod. “Yeah. Kate.”

“Probably,” Bucky shrugs. “Steve keeps putting his foot in it—"

“You know you don’t have to prove yourself to us, Hawkeye. We know what you’re capable of. You don’t have to get thrown out of windows every damn mission—"

“Prove myself? Excuse me? You think I’m trying to _prove_ myself? I just want us to be clear, neither me nor my team have ever been trying to _prove_ ourselves to you--”

“You don’t always have to pick fights with guys three times your size—"

“Okay, one, this is a _corporation_ —"

“—would it kill you to have _some_ regard for your safety?”

“And _two_ it’s not my fault bad guys are all beefcakes and _three_ since when do you get to lecture me on personal safety?” Bucky can see what she’s thinking, when she turns her gaze to him: _Can you believe this shit?_ And _Did Steve “Yeah Sure Do Untested Medical Experiments On Me” Rogers just lecture me on_ safety?

For his part, Steve looks like he didn’t realize she was going to call him on that, which is…well, a little adorable.

“What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s not like this is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. It’ll be fine.”

“Because if you get hurt it interferes with Steve’s thirteen-step plan for—" Bucky catches Steve’s death glare and does not finish with _seducing your favorite Hawkeye_.

“Right, I probably don’t want to know. This is a solid plan, Steve. It’s the first break we’ve had on this job in _months._ I’m not going to torpedo the mission just because you suddenly have a hangup about me being in charge.”

“ _That_ is not what this is about, so don’t even _pull_ that. It’s about you going in with no backup. It’s about how sending one of the only unenhanced Avengers into a place with unknown dangers and operatives is a _horrible_ idea. It’s about you taking stupid risks for what might be a nonexistent informational payout!”

“Oh, please. Like _every person_ in this room hasn’t gone in _on_ less info _for_ less intel. To _worse_ places. This is a solid plan, and you need to deal with your issues or find somebody else to run your end of it.” Kate stands abruptly, taking a series of measured breaths, in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four. “I’ll give you a few minutes to attempt to reconcile yourself with that.”

She stops in her exit, catching sight of Matt and Logan. “Are we giving out tickets, now?” A noise, low in her throat, dancing the edge between a sigh and a growl, and she’s gone.

With Kate out of earshot, Bucky leans forward with a smile. “You realize everything you just said to Hawkeye I said to you at one point or another. Before the serum?”

Steve proceeds to do a quality impersonation of a freshly-caught fish.

“I can’t believe this,” Bucky is maybe a little _too_ gleeful. “It’s like you opened your mouth and I fell out.”

“She’s right, you know,” Logan looks up from the marked-up map.

“About _what_?” Steve replies, though it looks like he’s saying it more to the table.

“Apart from everything she just said? She’s the best choice. She’s regular human, no serum, no mutation. If they _do_ have the security everyone thinks they do, she won’t trigger any alarms.”

“If StrexCorp winds up having more muscle than we anticipate—"

“Then she’s still the best bet. Jean tried to get in there, Hulkling tried, hell, the _Hulk_ tried. If they can’t, then we need a baseline human. That leaves you with SHIELD agents, who can’t make a move because they’re SHIELD, or a Hawkeye. Clint’s too recognizable, and he’s also worse at undercover. That leaves Bishop.”

“That is what she said,” Bucky sighs. “And you know she can handle herself.”

“And she’s also right about us going into worse situations with less _for_ less."

“I don’t like it,” Steve says, sounding more like a peevish five-year old than a ninety-some-odd-year-old man.

“I don’t think you have to,” Matt points out.

“ _And another thing_ ,” Kate slams the door open. “I’m having a hard time letting it slide that the man telling me I’m too vulnerable and breakable to do this job is a man who once weighed ninety pounds soaking wet and got into back-alley brawls only on days ending with the letter ‘y’. I _am_ the best tactical choice, and I _am_ going to be the one we send in.”

Kate and Steve lock gazes.

And, as he does when she is right, as she is now, Steve folds—ten seconds earlier than the recorded average; must be the soulmate thing softening him up. “You’re right, Hawkeye. Just try not to get a concussion on this mission.”

“I don’t like to make promises I can’t keep.”

Steve does not look particularly comforted by this sentiment.

Steve and Kate are leaning over a set of blueprints when she says, "You called me an Avenger."

"Well, you _are_."

"Yeah, but nobody _calls_ me one," a shrug, a toss of her hair.

Next to Bucky, Murdock and Wolverine shake hands.

“You’re on, bub,” Logan says, and Matt grins as they shake on it.

Bucky decides he is better off not knowing.

* * *

“So, are we going to talk about this?” Kate bangs into Steve and Bucky’s apartment a few hours after the StrexCorp strategy meeting.

“Talk about what?”

“The past couple of months. Every time it’s come down to me going out, you balk. I figured you talk to me about it, eventually, but whatever it is is _still_ bothering you, only it’s getting worse. Are you afraid I’m going to go over to the dark side, or have a heart attack in the middle of a mission, or what?”

“What— _no_. I’m legitimately concerned for your safety, Kate.” Steve looks like he’d like to say more but doesn’t.

“I can take care of myself,” Kate seems genuinely puzzled—almost as if she wants to be mad but isn’t quite sure how mad she should be.

“I am aware of that,” Steve is getting redder by the second. “The two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Just because I know that you can take care of yourself doesn’t mean I don’t worry.”

Kate still looks confused, and Bucky wonders how he got stuck with two such idiotic smart people.

He also wonders how Kate got the reputation for being the Hawkeye with the best interpersonal relationship skills. It feels like false advertising.

“Is it the soulmate thing?” She continues after Steve has, apparently, failed to really sell his points. “Because I’ve been trying, okay. To be normal about stuff. I really—“ she falters, then, looking vulnerable and unsure. “I really care about you guys, and I don’t want things to get awkward. Be awkward. It’s just, um, I didn’t, you know, _ask_ for this—“ Bucky and Steve watch with growing fascination as Kate stumbles her way through whatever she’s trying to say. Bucky isn’t exactly sure what the message is, but it’s still sort of—God help him— _cute_. “It’s just, I mean, of course I think it’s gr—“

She’s interrupted by a loud banging on the door.

“Hey, is Hawkeye in there? I need her now!”

* * *

“I can’t decide if you have the worst timing or the best timing,” Kate says to Johnny as the elevator takes them to the main floor. “How did you even know where to find me?”

“Natasha suggested it after I banged on her door.”

Kate presses her fingers to her temples. “Great. What did you need, anyway?”

“Reed is here? I would like to be not here.”

“Okay?”

“You and I are going looking for trouble,” he explains.

“Johnny. Please. I don’t go _looking_ for trouble. Trouble finds me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I was able to think writerly things (but not focus enough to actually write) I realized that at first I was like "looool Johnny and Reed loool IRONY" and then I listened to a Snow Patrol song that is the current theme for this entire work and I BECAME TRASH THAT ACTUALLY SHIPS IT. What do you even call this ship? StormStretch? ElastiFire?  
> I did not intend to ever care about Reed Richards this much and it's really been throwing a wrench in this story. if you're mad that you didn't get more with this chapter, you can blame 1.) car accidents and 2.) Reed Richards.  
> Slightly pointless WTNV references. I, personally, believe that Darcy Lewis is a Night Vale native, but that is neither here nor there.


	5. Meanwhile, Everyone Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We take a short break from Earth's Mightiest Idiots to focus on...different Earth's Mightiest Idiots. Sort of. A little. Maybe. Kate just wants to know why these things keep happening to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH LOOK REED RICHARDS HAS A HEART. (or, like the equivalent of one)  
> Warning: the majority of my Fantastic Four knowledge comes from the original movies, so...keep that in mind.  
> as usual, un-beta'ed so all mistakes are mine, etc., etc.
> 
> oh, and you can find me on the tumblrs at sergeant-angels-trashcan now! Drop me a line if you have a prompt or something. Or just say hai. You know. As you do.

“Tell me,” Reed cuts in, deadly and sharp. “Do you even know what it takes to get into NASA? Washout or no, he’s talented and intelligent. Remember that.”

“What’s with you, Reed?” Ben frowns. “You’ve been preoccupied lately, and usually letting you complain about Hothead takes you right out of it. What gives?”

Suddenly, Reed is sick of himself. Of this, his current predicament, of this soulmate nonsense.

Ben is right. He's made that crack about Johnny before; he's half-heartedly defended Johnny against that insult. Is it really so different now? He doesn't believe in the validity of Wiccan's spell, in part, perhaps, because there's no way he and Johnny could ever make sense. They barely make sense as acquaintances, and even that's only because Reed and Sue have been together for years.

And Sue and Hank  _do_ make a strange sort of sense, much as it pains him to admit. Ben and Wanda, they make a strange sort of sense, too. 

And Johnny's going around acting like Kate Bishop is his soulmate. Presumably she hasn't found hers, or she doesn't agree with it, either.

Reed has to remind himself that it isn't  _her_ fault. Not her fault she's bad at relationships, or that her teammates are powerful enough to make everyone else suffer for that failing.

It's an uncharitable thought, one that he tries to ignore. 

And now  _she_ gets to spend time with Johnny, and  _she_ will probably laugh at his stupid jokes instead of telling him  _how_ stupid they are. She will probably not bother to point out all the ways the action movie Johnny has picked to watch are scientifically inaccurate,and even if she does, Johnny probably won't argue back, because he only antagonizes the hell out of Reed. 

Never mind that Reed has grown fond of Johnny's commentary and his rebuttals-

And she isn't even a scientist! Johnny is so self-involved that he doesn't realize how much work he actually helps Reed with. Maybe not the science, per se, but making sure Reed has eaten and takes breaks and remembers that "humans need things like showers and sleep, man." 

He'll probably get more work done, now that he thinks about it. Johnny always drags him away from his work by asking him a ridiculous question, usually about the science of Star Trek, and then makes Reed watch an episode or two with him. Johnny usually at least provides nourishment of some sort for Reed's trouble, and he might be missing that a bit, but honestly, in the long run it will surely be better for his productivity.

He doubts that Kate Bishop has any productivity to be ruined, so-

With a slow-dawning horror, Reed realizes what's wrong with him.

In that moment, he isn't certain who he hates more: Kate Bishop, Johnny, or Wiccan.

* * *

“Ow,” Kate prods the tender skin under her eye.

“Don’t _poke_ it, jeez,” Johnny smacks her hand down. “What, were you raised in a barn?”

“I wanna know how bad it is.”

“Go look in a mirror, you idiot.”

“You know, I don’t have to let you squat in my apartment.” Kate angles her head so she can see herself in one of the highly reflective windows of the Avengers Tower. “Never again, Storm. Never again do you get to pick a restaurant.”

“Aww, come on, Hawkeye,” he sing-songs, throwing his arm over her shoulder with entirely too much familiarity. “You have to admit the curry was good.”

“The curry was great, right up until I _got thrown through a window_.”

“I didn’t realize you were so picky. Jeez. Next time—"

“ _Hawkeye!”_

Kate’s head whips around so fast her neck cramps.

Reed is striding towards them.

“What the _hell_ was that _idiotic_ move? You _do_ understand that you can’t just—you can’t just—"

Reed has reached them, and for a moment Kate isn’t sure if she’s going to get slingshot across the room or Johnny is.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Reed continues. “The Fantastic Four have a reputation to uphold, even if _you_ don’t—"

Which is when Kate realizes that Reed Richards is yelling at _her_ for Johnny’s stupid-ass mistake.

She opens her mouth to protest this injustice, but all she manages is an indignant squawk before Johnny drags her past Reed.

“It’s fine, man. I’m fine. Totally fine. Not even bruised. Not any concern of yours.”

“I don’t want to be in the middle of this,” she mutters. “I have enough problems of my own without your help.”

Reed glares at her as she and Johnny retreat, and she has the random and, of course, completely ridiculous thought that Reed Richards is experiencing the human emotion of jealousy. But it's probably impossible,so she dismisses it. 

* * *

"Well, my words say 'Hello, soulmate' which makes me think that someone's just walking around saying that, just to see if they get lucky." Sharon takes a moment to finish reloading.

"Or," Natasha counters. "Your soulmate is very intelligent."

"Intelligent! Ha!"

"At this point, if someone doesn't realize they're your soulmate after you've conversed with them, I think you can safely say they  _aren't_ intelligent. As far as our people go, almost everyone knows what's going on. Anybody who doesn't simply isn't paying attention."

"I  _told_ you, Scott," a voice drifts from the other side of the door, someone trying and failing to be quiet. "Now let's go in and see for certain."

A brilliant flash of red hair in Sharon's peripheral vision-

"Hello, Dr. Grey," Sharon suppresses a sigh. "What can I do you for?"

"Hello, soulmate."

"Wait, what?" Sharon turns to Scott. "You'd better not go all Cyclops on me for this," she warns.

"You're the one with a loaded gun," he says with a shit-eating grin. "So why would I do that?"

"Oh, excellent," Jean offers her a warm smile. "I suspected as much; makes things a lot less awkward, at least that's how I feel."

Not a lot of things render Sharon Carter speechless.

This is definitely one of them.

* * *

Kamala grabs Kate’s ringing phone just as Hawkeye herself goes sailing through a plate glass window.

“Hi, Kate Bishop’s phone!”

There’s the sound of someone letting out a deep breath on the other end.

“Did she just fall through a window?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it _falling,_ exactly,” Kamala hedges. “Listen, um. Guy? I’ll have her call you back when she’s done picking glass out of her hair.”

She does not say, _also, you wouldn’t happen to have those words somewhere on your body? That would be mega weird, right?_

“Sure. Sounds good.” The guy says.

Kamala pockets the phone before rushing off to punch things.

.

“Hey. Hawkeye?” Kamala jogs up to Kate after the giant sewer monster has been dealt with. "So, who's your soulmate, Hawkeye? I need to know."

"Um. And  _why,_ praytell, do you need to know?"

"Uh."

"Does it involve the letters  _R, P,_ and  _F_?"

"Um. No?"

"Right. Remind me to give Teddy and Natasha your email so you can all edit each other's fic."

"You want  _Black Widow_ to read my fanfic?" Kamala's voice goes squeaky on the last word. "Ahem. Right. There was something else."

Kate looks at her expectantly. Waits. Kamala clears her throat, tries again.

“I picked up your phone, earlier. And I kind of need to know who I was talking to? It’s important.”

“Okay? Can I ask why?”

“Uh. He might. Be. Well, a soulmate.”

“I thought you and Bruno…” Hawkeye trails off, her eyes going just a little wide. “Well. Huh. That’s.” She scrubs her face with her hand, setting off a shower of glass from her hair. “I think the triads outnumber the pairs now. Gimmie,” she makes a grabby hand at her phone, which Kamala returns.

Kate’s face does a number of things when she looks at her call log before she finally starts laughing. "How do you feel about LA's Ghost Rider, Kamala?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typically loathe all the drama that Scott/Jean seem to be rife with. They are neither one of them common sense enough to be alone with each other. Sharon Carter Would Not Stand For That Shit.  
> Also, Secret Wars' Secret Love was such a punch in the face because the promo material I saw for it was LITERALLY KAMALA IN LOVE WITH ROBBIE REYES WHY WOULD YOU NOT GIVE ME THAT.  
> UGH.  
> So in my head Kate mentors both of them and they sort of know each other and then eventually they meet and it IS an epic team-up only it is also followed by the two of them eating every bit of food in at least three food trucks and that's their first date. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules.  
> Also I thought the idea of Bruno being grouped with Kamala and Robbie was cute, like, they go out and do their thing and he's got the all-important snacks waiting for them when they get home. Bruno is the Darcy Lewis of Jersey.


	6. Vanishing Act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad things happen, and sad things happen, and eventually we'll all learn that talking about our feelings is probably a good thing. Maybe. Probably. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just...um...originally, I was thinking about Doom's soulmate being Vision...but for me, Vision is always this...borderline potentially morally grey character. And you can't have a morally grey character be Doom's soulmate.  
> So I sat here, thinking, who is the least morally grey character in the marvel verse? The one least likely to let Doom pull any morally suspect shit. Not Darcy, Darcy's with Banner...and all at once, it hit me. The only character I could think of (at that moment) who has never been evil, or a dark version...and then I said to myself, self, WTF are you doing even.  
> So write down who YOU think the least morally grey Marvel character is, and let's compare notes. This is explanation is currently longer than the exposition about Doom and his soulmate but it's that weird. 
> 
> Also, I just almost busted my lip trying to stop my cat from eating yarn. That's a thing.

“Remember last time?” Kate is shaking shards of glass out of her hair in the lobby of the Avengers Tower. “When I said you never get to pick the restaurant again? Yeah, I’m changing that to _I am never eating with you ever again_.”

“Does one of you want to tell me how this started?” Steve has soot smudged across his face and he’s running his hand along the edge of the shield like he does when he’s irritated-borderline-murderous.

Kate shoots Johnny a pointed glare.

“What?” his eyes go wide, all faux-innocence. “You picked the restaurant—"

Bucky catches Kate around her waist, mid-lunge.

“Doombots are always the Fantastic Four’s fault!”

“’Let’s go to Little Moscow!’ you said! ‘I’m in the mood for borscht!’ you said! I’m _not_ taking the blame for that!”

“Enough!” Steve is more Captain America right now, imposing and glaring and probably making eagles weep somewhere. “Hawkeye, with me.”

As it turns out, this only has the illusion of a request, because Steve and Bucky are frog-marching her to the elevator.

The Avengers are fucking cowards, Kate thinks sourly as the elevator doors slide shut, obscuring the “better-you-than-me” expressions on Steve’s team’s faces.

The elevator doors are a high-polish gold and Kate catches a glimpse of her amber-tinted reflection, the black eye and bruised cheek and dried blood under her nose.

The door closes just as Billy mouths _good luck_ to her.

“Jesus, you two are like fuckin’ five-year-olds,” Steve scrubs his face with his hand. “Un-fuckin’-believable.”

A muscle in Bucky’s jaw twitches.

“You know,” Bucky starts, polite and clipped. “I’m so glad we weren’t friends in the forties.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” Kate steadfastly refuses to look at him or his reflection. “That’s exactly what I want to hear after being attacked by Doombots while having lunch with the guy who’s squatting in my apartment.”

“Jesus. You two are just the same, you know? At least now Steve is big enough to not get tossed around like a newspaper on a windy day, but you—“ his metal hand curls into a fist, “you could be bowled over by a strong wind. If we’d known you back then I would’a been pullin’ both your asses from trash cans! Jesus, Hawk! Can you please give me _one good reason_ why you thought jumping off of a flying machine thirty feet in the air was a good idea?”

He’s yelling by the end of his speech, his shoulders climbing up towards his ears as he speaks, hair falling into his eyes.

Kate has the irrational desire to push the wayward strands behind his ears; she crosses her arms over her chest.

“One? Just one?”

“If you’ve got more than one reason, hey, I’d love to hear it,” the words grit through Bucky’s teeth.

“Because you have a death wish?” Steve interjects.

“It’s not a death wish, _jackass_. Reason One,” she points to Steve. “Reason Two,” she jabs her finger at Bucky. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” She mimes a mic drop and steps back. “Boom.”

“You—what?” Steve is valiantly trying to string a sentence together and Bucky, the Winter Worrywart, is looking from her to Steve with what she thinks may be increasing horror.

“I trust you idiots. Weird, right? You both saw me up there. No way one of you wasn’t going to find a way to catch me.”  She gestures and winces; her sides hurt like hell. Bucky’s metal arm isn’t usually an issue for her, but then, she’s not usually impacting it from a twenty-eight foot drop.

“Jesus fuck,” Bucky looks, if not relieved, at least less horrified.

The elevator comes to a stop on her floor; Bucky catches her by the back of the shirt just as Steve says, “Keep us going, Friday,” and the elevator starts moving again.

“We are in no way done with this conversation,” Steve informs her.

“Uh, yes, we _are_ ,” she says, trying to not feel quite so much like a poorly behaved kitten with Bucky’s hand clenched around a fistful of shirt.

“What is it with you?” Bucky rounds on her. “Ever since this soulmate stuff happened—everything just seems _off_ , and _you_ keep pulling away.” He shakes her a little for emphasis and it leaves her feeling more than a little disgruntled as they finally exit the elevator.

“What? I’m not pulling away.”

“Like hell you're not,” Steve counters.

“I’m not—yeah, okay, maybe a little.” Kate knows when she’s been caught out. “I tried to tell you before—I don’t want to make our friendship awkward. I’m already very third-wheel-y and I just, I don’t know. Didn’t want you to think I was trying to horn my way in…or something.”

Bucky looks at her like he’s never heard anything stupider in his life, and Steve has his so- _that’s_ -what-that-means look on his face.

“Right,” he says, cutting through the moment that maybe feels bigger than it should. “What am I cooking for dinner?”

“You can cook whatever you want,” Bucky starts.

“As long as you don’t actually cook,” Kate finishes. “So what happened at the end there? Bucky clotheslined me and I missed it.”

"Clotheslined my  _ass_ ," he mutters.

“Oh, uh,” Steve comes to a full stop. “About that. Doom met his soulmate.”

“Oh, no way. Who? Vision?”

“Um,” Steve casts his eyes to Bucky, who starts laughing. “Doreen.”

“Doreen who?” Kate stares at Steve. “Wait. Wait. _Doreen_ Doreen? _Squirrel Girl_ Doreen? What the fuck,” Kate drops her head into her hands as Bucky starts howling with laughter. “What the fuck _what the fuck_.”

* * *

A month passes. Johnny is still staying with her, and it’s not getting less awkward. If anything, it’s cutting into her Steve-and-Bucky time, which, all things considered, is probably for the best. It’s not that she doesn’t want them to be her soulmates. It isn’t even that she particularly disagrees with that sentiment; more that she’s had a lot of time to see the Bucky-and-Steve dynamic up close, and as much as she wants to be a part of it, she’s not going to try and sabotage it. They’re _too_ nice, she decides. Because they never make her feel like she’s encroaching on their turf, or that she’s not wanted. It’s so easy just to slip into their lives; she has to constantly remind herself _not_ to.

However, her attempts to keep her distance are thwarted by two supersoldiers who should _not_ have puppydog eyes in their repertoire. It’s just not _fair_.

Which is how Kate winds up one weekend with her boys, playing a game she likes to call “let’s pretend to be tourists” and Bucky likes to call “how many different types of food can we eat in one day”.

That’s when it hits her; on this ridiculous gastronomical expedition. Specifically, it hits her at Nathan’s on Coney Island as Bucky and Steve are making a disgustingly large pile of hot dogs even more disgusting by adding literally every condiment they possibly can to them.

“Steve. Steve why the fuck are you putting _peanut butter_ on a hot dog? That’s the most disturbing thing I have ever seen in my _life._ Bucky, don’t _encourage_ that, how do you two even think this stuff up?”

Her familiar refrain is being patently ignored when she realizes: she isn’t falling in love with Steve or Bucky. She completely _missed_ that happening, and now she’s just straight-up _in love_ with Steve _and_ Bucky.

She’s never going to tell them, of course; _that_ she knows right away. They’re stupidly perfect together. And she doesn’t want to have to consider what her life would be like without them if she did, you know, accidentally tell them. She would tell them, then die of horror, then slink off to LA and never speak to anyone other than her team and maybe Groot ever again.

“Everything okay?” Steve says to her, grinning his stupid perfect smile at her.

For a heady, drunken moment when she first opens her mouth, Kate thinks the words might just escape her—

“Everything’s fine,” she lies _._ Her fingers twitch and she thinks about how much she’d like to throttle Billy.

She settles, instead, for taking a napkin to Steve’s forehead. “How did you get this on your forehead? What _is_ this?”

“Jam,” Bucky informs her, herding them to a table.

“I don't even know what to do with that. That's disgusting."

* * *

They’re hitting up the gourmet donut place before heading home when unholy robotic terror starts raining from the skies.

“Are you kidding me?” Kate rolls her eyes as Bucky flips a table and Steve procures his shield.

“What the—are those _giant robot scorpions_?” Bucky asks. 

"What is everyone's  _deal_ lately?" she answers his question with another question while pulling her take-down from her purse. She starts assembling it as Bucky pulls out a gun from his boot.

“Never fails,” Steve mutters, securing his shield to his arm. “ _Every fuckin' date—_ “

“Wait, what?” Kate’s question never gets answered-well, _nobody's_ question gets answered-unless you count the glass of the watch repair shop to their left being smashed by a harpoon shot from the robo-bug’s tail.

“I’ve only got three explosive-tipped arrows,” she laments. “Text Clint and have him bring an extra quiver.”

With that, Kate rises and shoots and— _wait for it—_ the scorpion advancing on a group of civilians explodes.

Bucky is looking at her something that is either awe or terror—she’s too busy to parse his expression out right now. “You were carrying explosives around in your _purse_?”

“Smart,” Steve says, looking at her appreciatively. She’s definitely imagining the way his eyes linger on her lips, because even if that _was_ something he would do this wouldn't be the time for it.

“Yeah, it’s like—they’re benign until you connect the arrowhead with the shaft, Tony and I worked on these for a month, getting the formula down—"

Bucky grabs her by the back of the neck and drags her head down as something whistles in the air above them and impacts the wall behind them.

“Thanks,” she says as Bucky shakes his head at her.

“What am I supposed to do with you idiots?”

“Um, _excuse_ me, I think the question is what am _I_ supposed to do with _you two_ idiots?” Kate counters as she and Bucky both rise and fire at the same time.

A robot crashes into a building and chunks of concrete start to rain down just as Steve covers their heads with the shield, as if nothing more exciting is happening than they’ve gotten caught in the rain and he’s the only one with an umbrella. “Can we table the discussion of who the idiots are and what's being done with them? Maybe until dinner?”

“Spoilsport,” Bucky kisses Steve, a brief smack of lips, before vaulting over their cover.

“Ready, Hawkeye?”

For a half-second, she debates giving Steve a peck of her own, and he _is_ looking at her lips and this is _not the time_.

“When you are, Cap.”

* * *

Kate wakes up in the infirmary.

She and Steve are in the same room. That’s how she knows how bad it was. Bad enough that Avenger resources—namely, space—are being used for civilians, enough that Avengers—namely, her and Steve—are being packed together to free up space.

Steve is still unconscious, another indicator of the level of badness of the situation. Not just bad. Very bad. Very, very, very…lots of verys. Bad.

Her head feels sort of blank—it doesn’t hurt, exactly, but pain is _there_ , just there on the edge of things—as she rolls herself out of bed and staggers over to Steve.

 _Attempts_ to roll out of bed is probably more accurate. Her rolling is stymied by the tug of an IV, which, now that she’s aware of it, is making her hand and arm cold.

Drugs, maybe? Drugs are nice. Unlike the rest of the Avengers who either have some kind of moral opposition to them, or the ones who have such high metabolisms they burn off super fast, Kate has no qualms about spending quality post-injury time higher than a kite.

High metabolisms.

Much like the super soldier in front of her. She’s standing over him, and Kate can’t quite piece together how she got there, but the IV is still in her arm and her knee might be stinging a little.

Weird. She must have hit it on something but can’t quite come up with _what_. 

“How many drug til unconscious Steve?” Kate wonders, tapping her fingers along his hand. It feels weird to talk, like somebody else is using her voice. Whatever resources they’re low on, it’s obviously not the quality narcotics. “That, or Natasha is sneaking us the good stuff,” she tells Steve, who, for obvious reasons, doesn’t respond. “Or you had your brain mashed in. I hope it’s _you’re high_. I like your brain. Other parts, too, but those aren't much good without your brain. It's a nice brain.”

She doesn’t remember what happened. She gets flashes, like a fast paced movie trailer—winning, for the most part, and then turning back and Steve on the ground—she’s never seen Steve take a hit so hard he didn’t get up—

A giant robot scorpion—and really, who’s idea was _that?_ —noticing Steve, too.

She remembers the arrow, she remembers blue fletching—blue means EMP--

Letting the arrow fly, and she hadn’t paid attention to it after that, had _moved_ , been focused on—on—

She remembers grabbing Steve’s shield, light and heavy at the same time.

And one of those weird random flashes, so clear amidst the fog of the other memories, of her knee digging into Steve’s ribs, wondering if she would break them and thinking _What if he’s dead_?

She remembers, very clearly, also thinking _unacceptable._

She remembers an ache in her arm as she hauled the shield up over their heads and seeing the robot seize up and thinking,  _this looks bad_.

And that’s it.

Kate can feel the dull, distant ache of her body, muffled by so many opiates, and her head reels. There's a hot pricking at her eyes when she looks at Steve, looking pale and so _fragile_ for all his bulk. Bruising shadows under his eyes and there’s a deep gouge slanting across his forehead, another across his cheek.

She flips through his chart, and the words are there—she _knows_ what the words are—but she can’t seem to make them form any coherent sentences, can’t force them into something she can make sense of.

“Steve?” she says his name and it’s too loud in the quiet of the room; her voice somehow too feeble and uncertain despite the way it cuts through the silence.

Someone in the back of her head barks at her to pull it together, _get your shit together_ , but she can’t seem to corral her thoughts to actually _do_ anything except stare at him and reach her fingers out to stroke a wayward strand of hair away from his face. What if he’s not okay? What if this was the last day she ever spent with him?

No. No, pull it together. Drugs make her maudlin, sometimes. Steve Rogers is a stubborn bastard and he’s not going to succumb to death by something as undignified as _robotic scorpions Jesus fucking Christ_.

“Stevie—I’m gonna—I don’t think I can make it back to my bed. Are you okay if I just pass out here? If not, feel free to kick me out, I don’t think I’ll notice,” she says, crawling next to him in the tiny hospital bed. “I’mma pass out now, ‘kay?”

Kate tucks her head under his chin, her ear against his heart. It’s not until his warmth sinks into her that she realizes she's shivering.

Steve’s heart beats steady, his pulse echoing like waves through his veins. She can hear his stomach gurgle and his bones creak and his breath ruffles her hair. “You better be okay, punk, what would Bucky and I do without you?”

And with that, she slips into a drug induced fugue.

* * *

“Thank you again, Natalia.”

Bucky’s voice doesn’t cut into Kate’s sleep so much as it gently intrudes, the confirmation of his presence settling around her, offering a warm kind of comfort.

“It’s just coffee, Bucky.”

“Not the _coffee_ ,” he snorts. “Helping me get them in the same room. What did you tell Stark, anyway?”

“I told him to put them in the same room.”

“No, I mean—when he asked why.”

“I told him to mind his own damn business.”

“Ah.”

“I think he’s scared of me.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Bucky’s voice is tinged with amusement.

“I know. I mean, I haven’t done anything remotely terrifying in at least a week.”

“Natasha,” Kate says, her voice muffled. It takes a moment for her to realize that she’s speaking into a really firm, very hot, pillow. Another moment to realize that it’s not a pillow, it’s Steve’s chest. “On Monday you handed Tony a muffin and then told a story about how you once baked poisonous berries into a dictator’s breakfast to kill him.”

“Oh, right.”

Kate tries to sit up, only to find that every muscle in her body is protesting and every joint is locked up.

“Ow,” she informs the room at large.

“Hey, easy,” the cool of Bucky’s metal fingers encircle her bicep, steadying her.

“I’ll grab a doctor,” Natasha says, followed by the soft _click_ of the door closing.

“Ow,” Kate says again, more as a conversation starter than anything else. “What’s this about?” she’s sitting up, finally, toes skimming cold tile, frowning at Bucky. Her hands reach up of their own accord, brushing his hair away from his forehead, away from the scabbed-over gouge.

“Buildings falling apart tend to do that to a person,” he shrugs, and Kate is surprised to find her hands are now cupping his cheeks.

“But you’re okay?”

Bucky nods.

“Is Steve okay?”

“Steve was _sleeping_ ,” the man in question grumbles. “Steve has a headache.”

“Since when do you talk about yourself in third person?” Bucky beats Kate to the question.

Kate then has the sudden realization that she should probably move, since Steve and Bucky are, well—and she’d crawled into Steve’s hospital bed—ugh, why?—drugged-up Kate has no regards for the well-being of sober Kate, and that's a fact.

But Steve’s arm is heavy across her hips, not quite pinning her, but not exactly urging her away. And Bucky is tilting her head, pressing cool fingers to her temple.

“Ow,” she reminds him.

“Yeah, wait ‘til you see _why_ ow,” he smiles at her.

She’s almost got a witty comeback pulled together when the door opens for Natasha, towing her promised medical professional behind.

* * *

 

The evening she and Steve are released from medical, Kate barges in to Steve and Bucky’s apartment. She used to barge in a lot; then she barged in on the two of them having sex in the kitchen, which, well. There had been the required oh I’m sorry/awkward fumbling/blushing/excuse me/I’ll come back laters. Kate had started knocking because wanting to watch your best friends have sex together is one thing; _acting_ on it is another. She has a code of morals and ethics, and sure, it might be a little thin in some areas but she’s not _actually_ trying to be a fucking creeper.

Regardless. Usually she knocks. This is not usually. This is…this is get in, get out, fling self into ocean so you never have to look anyone in the eye, ever again.

“Hawkeye?” Bucky says, at her side in moments. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is _wrong_ , per se,” she hedges. “Um. I mean, it’s not exactly _right_ , either, but who’s counting, at this point?”

“What’s wrong?” Steve repeats the question from the kitchen, twisting a dish towel in his hands. It almost makes Kate laugh, how Steve goes from “washing dishes” to “imma kick sum ass” in 0.05 seconds.

Almost.

“Take a seat,” Bucky pulls a chair out from the table. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Figuring it out isn’t the problem, it’s…” Kate doesn’t know how to finish. “It’s more the execution of the solution.”

“The soulmates thing, then,” Steve leans against the wall. “Lay it on us.”

Hysterical laughter bubbles out of her. “Interesting choice of words.” Kate takes a deep breath and forces herself to stop pacing. “Billy and Strange figured out how to get rid of the soulmarks. We have to tell the people we’re marked with how we feel about them. And then, you know. Physical contact. Kissing will apparently suffice. And by we I mean my team,” she clarifies. “Specifically Tommy and I. And I’m the holdup. I just want you to know—I want both of you to know—that I was planning on avoiding this conversation for eternity and I’m just—“ she swallows hard around the lump in her throat. “I’m really, really sorry it’s come to this.”

“I don’t see the problem--” Bucky starts.

“Just let me finish, okay?” she takes a deep breath and crosses to Bucky, who’s giving her a sort of bemused smile. She closes her eyes, as if not being able to see him will make it easier; it doesn’t so she opens them again. “Bucky, I l—I’m _in_ love with you,” she corrects herself, pushing up on her toes to press her lips to his, a faint buzz humming down her arm.

Fast, now, like ripping off a bandage, she crosses to Steve.

“You are _stupid_ tall,” she informs him. “And I am stupidly in love with you, too.”

She stretches up to plant a chaste kiss on his lips, a second shock running down her other arm as she pulls back.

Kate is entirely unprepared for Steve's hands on her hips, spinning them around so he can push her up the wall and _kiss_ her, threading a hand through her hair, and this is so far off from what her plan had been that when Steve presses his thumb against her chin, her mouth drops open obligingly and then _Steve Rogers’ tongue is in her mouth_. And wow, holy shit, is he _good_ with his mouth—

“I’m so pissed at you,” Bucky says from a foot away when she finally tugs Steve back by his hair because unfortunately, she needs air. “’Let’s slow-play this’ he said. I want you to know that, Kate. I was all for full-steam ah—“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bucky,” Steve interrupts Bucky's tirade by yanking him close by the shirt collar. “Shut up, okay?”

"Yeah, I think there's better things you can be using your mouth for," Kate agrees.

She kisses Bucky; in earnest this time, so he can get a feel for the other things his mouth could be doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was originally more angst but Steve was literally like "no??? um??? i have v fast reflexes so kate wouldn't make it out the door before we were all protesting that exit thank and good night" (and bucky was like "same")  
> so I'm sorry if you wanted more angst and mutual pining kate was all for that but nobody else was.


	7. Postmortem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the day-or rather, the morning-after the soulmarks finally disappear.  
> Everyone is denying the fact that they're not in denial, and Daredevil wins a bet, much to Logan's dismay.  
> (guys, that's not what you're supposed to use your super-senses for)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swearing and mentions of sexytimes, if that's not your thing.

Kate and her team are the first ones in the conference room for the final debrief. As far as she knows, everyone's marks are gone-and  _everyone_ had texted her last night. 

Which, you know. She ignored. 

Kate is the last person on her team there; it’s a good thing Steve is an early riser and that neither he nor Bucky know how to make decent coffee or she might have just not moved until noon. The thought of drinking the sludge Bucky considers an acceptable brew is the only reason she stayed awake.

Her team stares at her for a moment and then Kate starts debating just going back the fuck to bed because they start applauding.

Because they are assholes.

“And coming out of an early retirement, let me present Hawkeye’s Sex Hair!” Tommy says it like he’s a carnival barker.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kate responds with an inordinate amount of primness.

“So we’re supposed to believe that you’re wearing the scarf due to a fit of nostalgia?” Billy tugs on the end of the white scarf in question. “And not a futile attempt to cover up hickeys.”

"Told you she had a good reason to not respond to our texts last night," Teddy adds.

Voices carry down the hall, approaching the room.

“Can we at least pretend to be professionals during this meeting?” Kate says with what she feels is a generous amount of serenity. The subtext is: I can and will kill you all if you don't.

“ _This isn’t over_ ,” Billy hisses at her.

* * *

Kate’s request for maturity from her team may, in retrospect, have been an unnecessary one.

The Fantastic Four all come in separately; Sue comes in, deep in conversation with Hank; Ben is accompanied by Wanda; Reed and Johnny come in exactly three and a half minutes apart. Johnny looks mussed and slightly stunned as he flops down in the chair next to Kate; Reed looks smug, which is normal—only it’s not normal Reed-smug. It’s—God help them—it looks more like I’m-awesome-at-sex smug.

Though Kate could be projecting a bit. It's entirely possible.

Natasha and Sam at least come loaded down with baked goods, followed by Steve and Bucky. Kate makes a point not to look at either one of them until they’re sitting down; she’s proud to note that the bruises she’d bitten into both of them this morning are still faintly visible.

She’d been a little rough about it, honestly. Enhanced healing abilities really don’t make for a level playing field as far as the obvious signs of messing around. Whatever. She’s proud of her handiwork.

Stark and Rhodey are five minutes late.

“Did we miss a memo, or something?” Tommy leans over and asks David. “If I’d known it was Frick-Frack Friday I would have—"

"Tommy, please think very carefully about how you want to finish that sentence versus how you want to spend the next two months," Kate's tone is bland as she sips at her coffee.

Tommy appears to consider her advice. He looks to his left-David-and his right-Daisy-and shuts his mouth with a snap.

Kate’s phone vibrates. Text from Steve.

Except it’s all gibberish.

No, it’s a _cipher_. She raises an eyebrow at Steve, who smirks at her—holy _fuck_ is that a dirty smile.

“ _Who’s strong and brave—_ “ Bucky sings as he plops down next to her.

“ _Here to save the American way—“_ she joins him. Then, “Dammit, Barnes, I just got that out of my head.”

Steve has that  _smile_ and—

And _Steve is sexting her using a book cipher_ with his goddamn vintage theme song as the key _what a fucking nerd_.

Well, maybe not _exactly_ sexting. It’s really more a semi-detailed itinerary. He seems to be suggesting some combination of lunch/brunch and her sitting on Bucky’s face while Steve fucks him; trying to see how _she_ feels about being in the middle; and something involving honey and honestly Kate’s a little hot under the collar at that point.

“Hey, Hawkeye,” Steve’s voice cuts through her mental fog. “Focus up.”

Kate sucks in air and glares at him. Fortunately, nobody in here signs particularly well so there’s nobody to be scandalized by what she informs him of what he can do—

Which is, of course, when Clint and Strange walk in.

“ _Bro_ ,” Clint stares at her. “That’s not workplace appropriate.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Steve mutters.

Kate thinks that’s very rich of both of them, Clint included, since, judging by his mussed hair and swollen lips and Strange’s improperly buttoned shirt, the reason they were late is because Clint exhibited poor impulse control. Tommy might have been right with Frick-Frack Friday.

“So,” Steve begins again.

“Sorry we’re late,” Logan apologizes, barging into the room. “We were—“

He freezes and sniffs the air.

“Move it, Logan,” Murdock says with an audible _whap_ of his cane hitting Logan. “Oh. _Oh_. I _told_ you it was all thr—” he breaks off his declaration with a cough. “I mean. Um. Maybe we could open a window, air this place out?”

"We're on the thirtieth floor," Tony snaps. "Windows don't open."

“Let’s just get started,” Steve cuts in like the smoothest motherfucker who ever lived. “I have things to do.”

And sure, Logan coughs _Hawkeye!_ into his hand before sliding a bill into Murdock's hand, but nobody seems to notice.

Except Bucky, whose hand is hot and firm on her thigh.

And Steve, who seems not to realize how obvious the hickey she’d given him is.

Her boys.

Yeah, she definitely owes Billy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just assume everyone has happily ever afters. (Including Hank and Sue and Johnny and Reed.)  
> Thank you guys so much for coming on this cracky romp with me. Like most things, it started as one thing and ended up another. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you had fun with it (I sure did) and I hope that if it inspires you to find your very own uber-ridiculous crackships, you let me know what they are.  
> Also, as requested: A final tally of the soulmates.  
> Billy/Teddy  
> Tommy/David/Skye[Daisy]  
> Clint/Strange  
> Darcy/Bruce  
> Reed Richards/Johnny Storm  
> Sue Storm/Hank McCoy  
> Tony/Pepper/Rhodey  
> Wanda/Ben Grimm  
> Thor/Jane/Sif  
> Natasha/Sam  
> Steve/Kate/Bucky  
> Bobbi Morse/Jemma Simmons  
> Leo Fitz/Mack  
> Wolverine/Matt Murdock  
> Jean Grey/Sharon Carter/Scott Summers  
> Rogue/Phil [also known as crackship not-appearing-in-this-fic]  
> Erik/Charles  
> Pietro/Nick Fury  
> Melinda May/Lance Hunter  
> Maria Hill/Gambit  
> Victor von Doom/Doreen Green [Squirrel Girl]  
> Kamala Khan/Bruno/Robbie Reyes [Ghost Rider]  
> And, yes, Eli does have a soulmate…would you believe that I just couldn’t figure out who it was?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Preoccupied](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6103615) by [sergeant_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel)




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